


With Careful Consideration

by paradiamond



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, TW: Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt has an obsession with ending his own life, which he rationalizes to himself for years. Hermann sees it all in the Drift and has to figure out how to deal with it, along with his feelings for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Careful Consideration

**Author's Note:**

> Serious trigger warnings here for suicidal thoughts and idealization. Read at your own risk.

From the moment he finds Newton on the floor of their lab bleeding and twitching from an ill-conceived drift experiment, Hermann starts to worry. He does his duty, making sure Newt isn’t dead, running to alert Pentecost, and then standing there as they send Newt out to find a _criminal_ , and in the aftermath Hermann finds himself angrily cleaning the lab up and mentally raging at his ridiculous partner for being so reckless with his own personal safety. The world is in danger though, so Hermann supposes that it might have been a reasonable risk. 

Then he goes to do it _again._

This time Hermann goes with him, sharing the load and absently wondering if he’ll actually be able to understand some of Newton’s erratic behavior, assuming they survive it. 

He gets significantly more than he bargained for. 

 

_When Newt is fifteen years old, he thinks about killing himself for the first time. Not in any serious way. He won’t really consider doing it for another five years, but he thinks about it._

_The afterlife is one of the great mysteries of the world. Unexplainable through both science and art. It is the one true mystery. The Big Question. So, for the sake of argument, Newt considers it. The obsession comes later._

 

Shock. Light. Abruptly only one mind in his head again. 

It’s too much information to process all at once, and yet Hermann saw everything in a flash and he knows far too many things now. He throws up, consumed by the suddenness of everything. Newton saw Hermann’s whole life in a minute and Hermann thinks he wants to die and the plan isn’t even going to work so it doesn't even matter, they’ll all die anyway. 

Hermann rights himself, disgusted and panicking. He looks over at Newt and sees understanding, especially of the fact that they don’t have time right now to deal with what they saw. 

“The plan!” Newton says, grabbing onto his arm. 

Hermann nods. “It’s not going to work.” 

The next minutes are some of the most intense of Hermann’s life. Standing in the control room with the last vestiges of human resistance and being unable to do anything but watch is incredibly stressful. Newton sticks close to his side, still bleeding and shaking. Hermann notices that he’s shaking too. 

They hold each other when the clock stops, smiling like idiots and just relishing in the fact that the world is _not_ going to end. That all their work was not for nothing. Hermann is smiling like an idiot, giddy with the realization that things can be _fixed._ Newt grins back at him and bumps their foreheads together. Hermann opens his mouth to tell him that he think everything really will be alright, which is something he believes Newt needs to hear, when Tendo gets up on his chair and yells “Party!” 

Newt laughs, sounding so elated that Hermann can’t break the moment. He sticks to his side instead, talking and laughing with Tendo, occasionally leaning into Newt's warmth with the excuse of support. 

“Oh shit,” Newt says when he notices this. “Do you need to like, sit or something? We kind of ran here from the helicopter.” 

His leg does hurt, and he can’t help but be a bit grateful that Newt noticed, despite everything. But Hermann just shakes his head. “I’m fine.” 

Newt nods and keeps talking. Hermann just lets it wash over him. Fine. Everything is fine. 

But then Hermann turns around and Newt is _gone_ and he feels like he’s going to be sick again. Images from Newton’s own imagination, images of Newton dead, suddenly flash through Hermann’s mind and he bolts from the room, not even attempting to be subtle. 

He wouldn’t. Not now.

Would he?

 

_Newt is sitting in his Boston apartment thinking about how far off the ground his window is when his phone buzzes. He almost doesn’t bother to look at it, the oppressive weight of total boredom making him slow and disinterested. A facebook update maybe. His mother trying to get him to come home for whatever holiday is next._

_He stares out the window. It really isn’t high enough to guarantee anything, but he thinks about sitting on the ledge anyway and feeling the complete lack of anything beneath his feet. He might slip climbing back in and need to make a sudden lurch, rebalance himself. It would a be a rush, Newt playing a game with his own safety. He’d feel alive._

_Too risky. Someone might see. He checks his phone._

_A giant monster has attacked San Francisco._

 

Hermann looks in their lab, Newt’s room, his room, the mess hall, the practice room, the Jaeger bay, their lab again, and all the while counts the minutes Newt has been out of his sight. How long would he need? Not long, depending on the chosen method. He has no preferred method that Hermann could discern, fairly considering all options and related benefits. There is no way to narrow down to search. 

“If I were you...” Hermann mutters to himself, tapping his cane repeatedly on the floor of the elevator, which is moving far too slow. 

Newt would probably be thinking about the fact that the Kaiju are all gone. His reason for living, the great project. He saved the planet, which Newt might choose to see as the perfect last act. He’s a fan of the dramatic, the rockstar exit. Hug his friends goodbye and check out. 

Chuck, Pentecost, the Wei triplets, Aleksis and Sasha...the whole Shatterdome is already in mourning. They would just add him to the list. If he were Newt he might choose to see that as an excuse. 

Hermann slams his cane into the wall of the elevator until the door opens. 

He finally finds Newton outside, standing far too close to the edge of the helicopter landing pad for his comfort and runs over as fast as he can, knee throbbing and heart pounding. Newt turns around and has the gall to look surprised to see him. 

“Uh-”

“Get away from there!” Hermann barks, and it might have been the wrong thing to say but he can’t hold it back. 

Newt blinks, startled. He allows Hermann to pull him away though, which is what counts. Hermann drags him all the way to the doors, far, _far_ away from the freezing water.

“Hermann I-”

“God damnit Newton! You can’t do that to me!” 

“I wasn’t doing anything!” Newt yells, automatically defensive, but stops when Hermann doubles over and puts his hands on his knees, relief and anger and sheer pain radiating from his leg washing over him all at the same time. He fervently hopes that he does not pass out. 

They stand in silence for an indeterminate amount of time as Hermann tries to get himself back under control. 

Finally Newt touches his shoulder lightly. “Hermann?”

“You _scared_ me,” Hermann hisses, levering himself up to glare at him. At least he has the decency to look guilty. 

“I...” Newt trails off, wide eyed. 

“Did you think that I wouldn’t notice? After everything I-”

“Ok yeah! I get it,” he says, still holding onto to Hermann’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t going to...do anything. Ok?” 

“I find that hard to-” Hermann stops, closes his eyes, and stands up fully. He looks at Newt, who is still bleeding a bit from the drifts and shaking from the cold. “I think we should go inside. I need an ice pack and some pain medication, and we need to talk.” 

Newt visibly pales, but follows Hermann back inside. 

 

_When Newt is twenty he buys a knife from a specialty weapons store and puts it in his desk. Leaves it there._

_He goes about his graduate studies, watches movies, writes papers, avoids his mother’s calls, and all the while the knife sits there, next to his highlighters. Every so often he’ll take it out and play with it. Run the dull side across the veins in his arm. Spin it around on the desk. To him, it’s the most valuable thing he owns._

_He lies on the floor for hours and just thinks. Considers it as a real possibility and not just a hypothetical. Decides to do it, changes his mind. The knife lies next to him- ready if he ever needs it._

 

“Look it’s not a big deal-” Newt says, not meeting Hermann’s eyes. 

Hermann rounds on him.

“Don’t you _dare_ try to tell me-”

“I wasn’t going to do it!” Newt yells, voice cracking. Hermann covers his face with his hands and take a deep breath. He feels like he might actually cry for the first time in years. Newton already did, a little bit. 

They’ve been in Newt’s room arguing for the past hour. 

“Ok,” Newt says after a few short minutes of silence, his voice rough from all the screaming. “Look, we’re both really messed up right now and I think we should just stop. For now.” 

Hermann doesn’t look up for fear that he’ll completely fall apart. “That might be for the best,” he says, numbly, sick from the guilt that’s rolling off Newton in near-palpable waves. Guilt for not only causing this, but not even being able to stop himself from yelling back, from fighting. It’s exhausting. 

He jolts when Newton’s hand lands on his shoulder, the same way it had outside. The thought of it makes Hermann’s stomach roll and he lets out a shaky sigh. “I’m staying here tonight-”

Newt frowns.

“Hermann-”

“I am,” he says, finding enough angry indignation left in him to look up at Newt’s tried face and not break. “Tomorrow morning we are going down to medical to have neural scans and physicals. Only,” he adds when Newt visibly pales, trying not to scare him into thinking Hermann will report him to the psychiatrist. Even though he might. 

“Alright,” Newton eventually says, finally seeming to realize how serious Hermann is about this. He slides his hand down Hermann’s shoulder to grab his hand and pulls him up to stand. “Let’s...get ready for bed then, I guess.” 

Hermann just nods, not allowing Newton to scare him away with his intimacy. “Fine,” he says, hoping that the even tone of his voice masks the excruciating pain that’s radiating up his leg. 

Newt lets him go and turns towards the bathroom. Hermann watches him go, and reminds himself again that they’ll be fine. He’ll make sure of it. 

 

_”Are you sure about this?” The artist, who had been recommended to him by a friend, leans down so he’s really close to Newt’s face. “You don’t want to do something you regret, and you can never take it back.”_

_Newt bursts out into hysterical laughter and the artist makes him reschedule his appointment. Newt goes to another tattoo parlor instead and gets Trespasser inked onto his back. It gives Newt the most grounding sense of control over his own body he’s ever felt, and he doesn’t take his special knife out of his desk drawer for a month._

 

“Oh,” Hermann says, attempting to sound casual. “There you are.” 

Newt glares at him. “Yeah. _Dr. Gottlieb_ here I am.” 

Hermann winces but doesn’t meet Newt’s eyes. “Yes, well.” He opens the folder he’d been carrying and pretends to search through the papers. It had been four weeks since the breach had been destroyed, and two since Newt had finally kicked Hermann out of his quarters for good. He hasn’t had any sort of incident since the night of their drift. However, Hermann is still having trouble letting Newton out of his sight for longer than a couple of hours. 

“You don’t need to keep doing this you know,” Newt says, flatly. 

Hermann looks away, clearing his throat. It isn’t getting any easier. “I’m not sure what you’re-”

“You can actually trust me not to jump off the first building I-”

“But what about other buildings, Newton?” he demands, even though he really hadn’t been planning on doing _this_ again. “Will you eventually-”

“Stop it! God, Hermann it’s like I can’t do anything without you checking up on me all the time.” 

Hermann flinches. “I’m just...concerned,” he says quietly, trying desperately to diffuse the tension. 

Newton scoffs. “I can only tell you so many times that you don’t _need_ to be.” 

“Well we both know that isn’t true-” 

Newton scoffs and gets up, deftly avoiding Hermann’s grasp. “I’m going back to my room, in case you need to know,” he says, accusingly. 

Hermann stands in the lab and glares at the floor. He knows that he’s pushing Newt in all the wrong ways, making him feel persecuted, trapped. Newt can’t stand to have his freedoms taken away, especially not his _ultimate_ freedom. As Newt sees it, it isn’t so much that he really wants to die, most of the time, he’s just fascinated by the idea. The power and the thrill of it. Hermann shivers. He understands the roots of Newt’s issues, had lived them, and that should make him better at this. 

He rubs a hand over his eyes, exhausted. He hadn’t slept well since Newt banned him from sleeping in his room with him, too worried about all the possibilities in those otherwise empty hours. It’s been a nightmare. 

He stares after Newt but doesn’t try to follow. There’s nothing dangerous in his room anymore, Hermann made sure of it. 

 

_The kaiju give him purpose, drive him to work more, harder, filling him with a burning desire to discover the likes of which he hadn’t felt since he’d picked up his first biology textbook. They make him feel like a child again. Freer._

_Sometimes, working beside his fellow scientists and later just Hermann, he wonders what he’ll even do when they beat them. Not if, because Newt keeps that faith in himself and his fellow humans. They’ll figure it out, but then what? This is what Newt was meant to do. It won’t get any better than this._

_Part of him already knows, and sometimes the clock in the Shatterdome feels like it’s counting just for him._

 

“Hannibal Chau,” Hermann says, his voice flat. 

“Yeah,” Newt calls over his shoulder, darting around his tiny room and throwing things into suitcases. He doesn’t meet Hermann’s eyes. “Just for a little while, and then I guess I’ll probably go back to teaching.”

Hermann frowns, knowing that the lightness in his voice is fake. Newton _hated_ teaching and should be smart enough to know that Hermann knows this too. 

“Maybe that isn’t such a good idea,” Hermann says, trying to be reasonable. To make Newt see reason. “He did threaten you, and who knows what that type of association might do to your career.” 

Newt just shrugs. “You’re the one that said I should get out in the world more.” He continues to rummage through seemingly random boxes, throwing things onto the bed. 

“That not what I meant-”

“Hermann...did you take my knife?” He turns around to face him, face pinched. Hermann feels a surge of guilt which he pushes down. He had every right. The number one rule of suicide prevention is literally stopping at risk individuals from being able to carry out their plans. 

Which isn’t to say that he doesn’t consider responding with ‘what knife?’. 

“Yes.” 

Newton frowns. “Dude...” He doesn’t seem truly angry though, not yet. 

“Newton, I don’t want to play games with you-”

“I’m not suicidal.” 

Hermann winces and tries to cover it up by turning towards the desk. Newt almost never even acknowledges the term. He doesn’t know what to say. 

“Hermann, I’m _not.”_

“You have an unhealthy obsession with ending your own life-”

“It’s not the same thing-” 

”Newton…”

“It’s not!” Newt says, earnestly. He manipulates himself into Hermann’s personal space, grabbing onto his both his shoulders and holding him in place. Six weeks ago, Hermann never would have allowed it. Now, Hermann feels like he’s taking anything he can get from the other man. 

“Hermann, there’s a difference between errant thought, just, consideration, and an actual plan or desire to kill myself. I don’t want you to worry about me anymore.” 

Hermann thinks this is what people must mean when they say that their blood goes cold. 

“I think that you should stay here,” he says, quietly, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from very far away. 

“Ha. Well maybe that isn’t such a good idea,” Newt says in an even tone and lets go of his shoulders. Throwing Hermann’s words back in his face. 

“Why not?” Hermann shoots back, attempting to keep his voice light. 

“Because,” Newt says, “I think we might be getting a little too dependent on each other, you know? Who knows what the drift did to us? Might not be healthy.” 

Hermann presses his lips into a thin line. “We were both cleared-”

“In the exam, yeah I know.” He stops to turn and face Hermann fully. “I’m just saying, I don’t think this is working out.” 

Hermann curls one hand into a fist and squeezes, feeling the pressure. “Well I think that you’re just trying to distance yourself from me like you did your mother so that when you-”

“Oh, god dammit Hermann-”

“I. Am. Talking,” Hermann nearly yells, grinding his teeth together. Newt blinks, clearly caught off guard. 

“I hope you realize that even if you move to the other side of the planet and we never see each other again, and you...” he trails off, running out of steam and suddenly unable to finish his sentence. Newt stares at him, eye wide. Hermann swallows, and continues, knowing how important it is for him to actually vocalize this point.

“The _guilt_ that I will feel over losing my only friend because I failed to-”

“But it wouldn’t be your fault!” Newt grabs his arm and squeezes. “You just don’t _understand.”_

Hermann looks at him. He thinks about staying up all night for the past month wondering if Newton is going to hang himself with his own stupid skinny ties in the bathroom. He thinks about Newt making him feel guilty over being _worried_ for his safety. About potentially not being able to find Newt one of these days. 

“Hermann…” 

“I’m telling the psychiatrist.” 

Newt lets go of his arm and shoves him into the desk. 

 

_After the first kaiju attacks there’s a rash of suicides all over the world. It’s chaos. Two students in Newt’s classes alone. Dozens across the campus. It’s madness- total insanity to match the insanity of what had happened in San Francisco, and then again in Manilla. Everywhere he looks Newt sees either raw determination or blank, hopeless faces._

_Newt isn’t immune, the constant threat looms over him too, making him feel even more out of control than usual. The need to dominate the fear, to take back the power over his own life, over where and when and how he is going to die, is nearly overwhelming. It’s his life, his choice. Not the Kaiju. Not anyone else. Him._

_The minute the offer comes Newt is booking a flight to Alaska._

 

Newton doesn’t speak to him for months. Being put on suicide watch doesn’t exactly do wonders for their friendship. Hermann hardens himself against his glares and the pointed questions from other concerned parties. Did they have a fight? The whispers follow him all the way to his quarters. 

He barely even sees Newt, who rearranges his schedule to seamlessly avoid Hermann’s. The silence of their once-shared lab is deafening, oppressive. He stares at the spot on the floor where he had found Newt collapsed to remind himself of the fear he had felt, of why this is all worth it. 

Sometimes Hermann wants to just leave. Go back to Germany and put everything about the last ten years behind him. He says as much to Dr. Greene, who is a nice woman and very good at her job, but is no real replacement for Newt. 

“He’ll come around,” she says, smiling at him kindly, for possibly the thousandth time. “These issues, it’s a process he needs to work through.” 

Hermann just glares fixedly at the clock and solemnly reminds himself that therapy is a proven medical science. He only started coming to prove to Newt that there was no shame in getting help, but the good Doctor seems to think that he needs to be here for other, more legitimate reasons. Trust issues, social anxiety, and other ridiculous notions. 

“I am aware of that,” he says at length, even though he really isn’t. She doesn’t know Newton like he does. Drift specialist or not Hermann had been in his mind and she hadn’t. Hermann understands that Newton may never speak to him again even if he does get better. 

She raises one eyebrow at him. “I see.” Hermann looks away, focusing on the clock behind her. Twenty more minutes. 

“He’s fine, by the way.” 

Hermann glances back down to her, trying to fight the heat he can feel coming up in his face. She gives him a knowing look. “Since I know you won’t ask directly. Obviously I can’t go into specifics, but he’s fine.” 

Hermann clears his throat and looks down at his shoes. “Well that’s...good.” 

“Good,” she parrots, closing her book with a snap. “Now, I think that’s enough for today, unless you have anything you want to go into further?” 

“No,” he says, perhaps too quickly. Dr. Greene holds up a hand. 

“But. You have homework.” 

Hermann fights the urge to rolls his eyes. “Very well,” he says, grudgingly. 

“I want you to write a letter to Newton-”

“That I will never send?” he guesses, voice dripping sarcasm. 

She gives him a stern look. “Yes. Since you seem to have an aversion to expressing yourself to others I think it would be helpful for you to write it down. Express it to yourself.” 

He lets out a long suffering sigh. “Alright.” 

“By next session or earlier-” Dr. Greene calls out, though Hermann is already out the door. Normally, he wouldn’t allow himself to be so rude, but therapy has been trying his already thin patience for months now and he finds himself increasingly drained by it. 

He walks towards his room, perhaps a bit too fast than is strictly best for his leg but Hermann can’t seem to take being around other people lately, even in passing. Most of his friends, or acquaintances, were really Newt’s friends that Hermann adopted over the years. Even Tendo, whom Hermann actually likes, is more Newt’s friend than his own. 

Probably the closest thing Hermann has to a friend right now is his therapist, and he just walked out on her. 

He sighs and angrily punches in the code for his door, only to glance up and immediately spot Newt standing awkwardly next to his bed. 

Several things occur to Hermann at once, such as demanding to know how Newt got past the security, sitting down to pretend like nothing is wrong, and even throwing his arms around him like he did after the breach was closed. He does none of these things. 

Newt looks like...Newt. Like normal. Obviously Hermann had been seeing him around, even though they hadn’t spoken since the Incident. Somehow, Hermann expected him to be different. Feel different. 

“So,” Newt says, finally. “I’ve been trying to write this...letter to you for the past three days, and it’s just so stupid that I finally just decided to come...here…” he trails off, looking at Hermann intently

Hermann stares at him, helplessly. He feels like his throat is closing up and like he’s about to start yelling all at the same time. Instead, he says, “She gave me the same assignment.” 

Newt laughs, bitterly. “Well no one ever said that therapists had to be creative.” 

“Newton-”

“I’m still pissed off at you,” Newt says, fiercely. Hermann lets his gaze drop, away from Newton’s intense expression. He never asked for this. Suddenly tired and unable to care about making a spectacle of himself in front of a man who had seen his entire mind, he drops into his desk chair. 

“I know,” Hermann answers, running a hand over his face. “I don’t expect that you-”

“Understand?” Newt finishes for him, in a tone that Hermann thinks is unnecessarily harsh. “No, Hermann, not really. I can’t leave the Shatterdome or do anything really unless I talk to her first. I mean, I could just _leave_ but then she would tell everyone, and I’d never be able to get a job again.” 

The bitterness in his tone makes Hermann winces, and he hears more than he sees Newt moves to sit on the bed, across from him. “But,” he stops, like he’s choosing his words. “I do get that you were worried about me, and I apologize for pushing you.” 

Hermann blinks, and looks up to meet Newt’s eyes. “That’s...fine-”

“No, it isn’t,” Newt says, seriously. “I don’t usually lash out, and I shouldn’t have then, even if I do still think that you were wrong to report me.” 

Hermann nods. “Alright. I forgive you.” 

“Thanks. I...forgive you too. I guess,” Newt says, relaxing a bit. Just the barest relief of tension in his shoulders. He sets his hand on his knees, and the gesture is so Newt that Hermann cracks a smile. He’d missed him, not that he would ever admit it out loud, but the feeling of Newt being out of his life so suddenly after ten years of companionship (wanted or not) had been intensely stressful. 

“Your welcome, and thank you,” Hermann says, letting himself relax too. After another minute of awkward silence, he finally decides to just ask. “What else were you going to put in your therapy letter?” 

Newt scoffs, looking away, and Hermann has a horrible moment where he thinks that he’s done it again, but then Newt turns back.

“Well…” 

And they talk. 

They talk until it’s three in the morning and Hermann can barely keep himself upright. Newt laughs, though it’s still a bit strained, and slaps him on the back. “Easy there,” he says, close to Hermann’s ear. They talk until they’ve run out of things to say and Newt falls asleep. Hermann stays up to stare at the ceiling and thinks, listening to Newt’s breathing beside him. 

In and out. Repetitive, reassuring. 

Hermann can tell from their conversation that Newt isn’t better, not by a long shot, but he manages to fall asleep anyway by curling his hand into Newt’s and thinking that this could be a start.


End file.
